Sailing and Kayaking

In Ixtapa Zihuatanejo you can enjoy a variety of catamaran excursions, snorkeling tours, sunset cruises, birdwatching expeditions, sailing opportunities and kayaking tours in our bays and nearby lagoons for some wonderful nature experiences.

Sunset Sailing Tours

Sunset sail

Taking a sunset sailing tour and allowing the wind to whip through your hair and cool off your skin at the end of the day is perhaps one of the most relaxing things to do on a perfect vacation. At the height of the winter months, from December through March, whales are often seen migrating northward along the coast. Dolphins play in the boat’s wake, and you can watch as spectacularly deep red sun dips itself into the ocean. Your backdrop is the hills along the coastline, with the lights of Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo Bay on the one side, and the tremendous expanse of Pacific waters all the way to the horizon on the other. What could be more ideal?

Daytime Sail and Snorkeling Tours

Daytime sail and snorkeling tours are another aspect of available aquatic activities and regular runs can usually be booked through the larger tour services such as Picante Tours; otherwise you can also contract one of the small fishing pangas to take small groups to some of the more remote snorkeling spots outside the bay.

Kayaking

Another great on-the-water activity in this area is kayaking. Bay kayaks, as well as small Hobie Cats, are available for rent along several points of La Ropa Beach, but there is also the option to book tours that will take you into the backwaters of nearby lagoons and mangrove-tangled lowlands that are teeming with aquatic birds and other wildlife. To glide silently through the water, watching the dense and sometimes flower-studded vegetation move past and have the opportunity to approach birds without startling them off into flight with the loud noise of a motor is a unique experience.

Zihuatanejo Kayaking

Boat Trip to Las Gatas

Las Gatas, a white-sanded coral beach near the mouth of Zihuatanejo Bay, is essentially only accessible by small water taxi from the downtown municipal pier, or by what is for some a somewhat arduous trek over the rocky outcroppings between Playa La Ropa and Las Gatas, which necessitates at times the scaling of some of the bigger boulders and so is not an apt course of action for people with walking difficulties or balance problems. But the water taxi, although only a short and sweet ride across the bay and back, is often considered enough of a refreshing and breezy water trip for many visitors who’d rather not spend long periods of time on board but who do want the thrill of surging over the waves, if only for a few minutes each way!

El Rey de Reyes (King of Kings) Tour

There is a monumental bronza statue of Christ which has been sunk into Zihuatanejo Bay off Las Gatas Beach. As of December 2008, a glass-bottomed boat tour can be taken which allows up to 45 passengers at a time to view the statue from above, along, surely, with the attending underwater life that will surround it. The statue itself measures six meters tall. Tickets are $40-$50 pesos per person. The statue can also often be seen by snorkelers who venture out beyond the Las Gatas reef.